Michael Barbaro is a “Political reporter for the New York Times covering 2016 campaign,” which is among the most coveted jobs in American journalism.

Media gadfly and would-be mogul Michael Wolff has a new book out, or maybe coming out soon, presumably with a title and so on. Here are the blurbs:

Here are some words that, in this particular order, do not refer to anything that exists: “parody sports-style game show.” What does that mean? Does “parody” modify “sports-style” or “game show” or “sports-style game show”? What is a “sports-style game show”? “Double Dare”? Would this be a parody of “Double Dare”? I’m happy to report that we’ll soon learn what one media organization thinks that term means, thanks to the money-drunk Bloomberg Politics team.

MSNBC’s Morning Joe, a largely unwatched showcase for a former congressman’s enormous ego, is (still) in serious ratings trouble, according to The Politico media reporter Dylan Byers:

Facebook, a dull and endlessly scrolling record of personal propaganda and content headlined in two or more sentences, isn't satisfied with the way its 1.4 billion users (most non-sentient) consume the news. According to the New York Times, it takes an epic eight seconds for the average Joe Facebook User to load an outside news link, clicked on in Facebook, in a new browser tab or window. Unacceptable.

MSNBC recently canceled shows hosted by Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid, reportedly because the channel is tacking away from liberal programming and because the ratings were bad. But MSNBC's supposed abandonment of liberalism can't extend that far: Rachel Maddow isn't going anywhere. So if the problem is mainly ratings, that raises an interesting (to me, at least) question. Why haven't there been any rumors about MSNBC canceling Morning Joe, a show with ratings that are just as bad as—and often much worse than—MSNBC's primetime programming?

On July 11 of last year, I arrived to work at the MailOnline newsroom in New York City and saw Keith Poole, our managing editor, standing outside smoking a cigarette. Even from a hundred yards away, it was clear that Poole—a generally pleasant Englishman who was the managing editor of the Daily Mail at the time—was agitated. It didn't take a detective to figure out why.

For sale: The New York Daily News.

How bad is this winter? So bad that the New York Times has an entire editorial entitled "This Winter Has Gotten Old," which includes the phrase, "We are depressed. But as the comic strip "Garfield" once put it..." (This paragraph could also have begun, "How bad is the New York Times editorial board?")

There are thousands of newspapers of all types in the United States of America. Not infrequently, they publish very bad editorial cartoons. Hey, here's a new one.

Frank Bruni's New York Times column today consists of Frank Bruni talking to his old college teacher talking about how times have changed, at college. Frank Bruni himself has not changed recently.

The New York Times is shutting down its national race and ethnicity beat, naming reporter Tanzina Vega its first-ever full-time Bronx courthouse reporter. Memo below.

What is Fusion? No one is quite sure, least of all Fusion itself. Following in the grand tradition of First Look Media, Fusion has more money than Croesus and a lot of talented people. It also has, apparently...an animated series about Buzzfeed?

Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire and former Republican mayor of New York City, has never had an easy relationship with the New York Times. He even told New Yorker editor David Remnick that “he detests the New York Times … [he] thinks that the New York Times has an opinion page on the front page and he loathes it.” But that didn’t prevent Bloomberg—who already controls his own shop, Bloomberg News—from trying to buy the paper.

Employees of Vox: if you've been thinking about asking for a raise, now is the time. (Updated)

A firm that invests in and lobbies on behalf of for-profit colleges has bought a controlling stake in Inside Higher Ed, an education trade magazine (and regular Gawker source) that regularly reports on the problems with for-profit colleges. That's very bad!

Distinguished Gawker alum and longtime desert dweller Ken Layne is now editing the quarterly publication Desert Oracle, which you can subscribe to here. Ken Layne is himself an oracle.

Wired editor Scott Dadich would like his offices to be free of action figures and other distractions. Today he sent a memo to the magazine's employees, which Wired fan-blog The Awl has reproduced:

First Look Media, the lavishly-funded media company founded by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar, has yet to generate any meaningful revenue—which is a problem if First Look hopes to remain independent in the long term. Today First Look star hire Glenn Greenwald floated an unconventional solution: Online advertising. Via Adweek*: